The Problem with Superman

ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY DYNAMIC DUO STUDIO

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So does Superman really have a dark side? An identity even more secret than Clark Kent? A graphic novel called Red Son, written by Mark Millar, answers the question with another question: What if Superman had landed not in the wholesome bosom of Kansas but in the cold heart of Stalin's Soviet Union? Wearing a hammer and sickle on his chest instead of an S, Superman befriends Stalin and succeeds him when the Soviet leader dies. (Stalin, Millar notes astutely, is Russian for "man of steel.") With his rigid notions of right and wrong, telescopic sight and super-hearing that can pick up a counter-revolutionary conversation half a world away, Superman becomes a terrifying global dictator, a nightmare fusion of Nietzsche's Ubermensch and Orwell's Big Brother. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, superpower corrupts well, even more.

Superman has always been prissily apolitical as a resident alien, does he even vote?--but that may be the missing piece. He's a metaphor for America, but an outdated, obsolete America: invulnerable to attack, always on the side of right, always ready to save the rest of the world from its villainy whether or not it wants to be saved. In the past, every decade has got the Superman it deserves, and don't worry, we'll get ours, but he will probably be flawed, more man than super. Americans don't want to be told what to aspire to anymore, who we should be. Our Superman will want to wallow in who he is and find out why he hurts. Keep your eyes on the skies. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore.